


Gunslinger's Glory

by duesternis



Category: Overwatch (Video Game)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Western, Drinking, Gen, Violence, gunfights
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-12
Updated: 2018-12-12
Packaged: 2019-09-16 23:31:01
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 710
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16963548
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/duesternis/pseuds/duesternis
Summary: Part of the story of a lone gunslinger.





	Gunslinger's Glory

**Author's Note:**

> Title from "Gunslinger's Glory" by The Dead South

There are tales - Legends - about an Outlaw that could shoot anybody he saw, as long as he had a full chamber.  
Six people, six miles apart, lined up on a hill, dead.  
If the Gunslinger had six bullets in his barrel.

Six shells in the sand, sizzling away, smoke rising from the spent gun.  
Six people dropping dead, a third, crimson eye glaring at the noon sun in six foreheads.

And a single half-smoked cigar, weeks old, dropping to the sand.  
Heeled boot crushing it out, spurs clinking.  
Wind howling like a forsaken widow in the ruins of her burned down farm, charred husband next to her feet.

The Gunslinger adjusts the brim of his hat over his eyes and turns his back on the felled men.

"Six against one. No honour amongst thieves."

He spits into the sand and starts walking.  
An eagle calls, buffeted high on the winds, and he trudges on to the next town.  
In search for food and water and as honest a work as he can get, with his face plastered on most sherrif stations in the country.  
Continent, mayhaps.

 

He arrives in a town, thirsty and dusty and hungry.  
Nothing but sand between his teeth for the last three days and nothing but sips of old canteen water and stale whiskey from a stolen bottle.

The saloon quiets down when he enters, a horse whinnies outside and he almost laughs.  
Instead drags himself to the bar and orders something to drink. Anything.  
Gets a tall glass of beer and a shot of whiskey.  
Feels like a new man after both and wipes sweat from his beard with the corner of his tattered cape.

"Anythin‘ a man needs to do round here to get a room and some water t’wash off the road?"  
The bartender spits on the floor behind the bar.  
"Pay."  
"That can do, no worries." The Gunslinger smiles and runs a finger along the rim of his hat.  
A key slides over the sticky counter and vanishes in the Gunslingers gloved hand.  
"Much obliged."  
"Sandra will bring you water."  
He taps his hat and leaves the bar for his room.

Sleeps for ten hours straight after washing.

Leaves the town at night with a horse and filled packs.  
The room goes unpaid, as do horse and food.  
The water he has paid an old woman for, out on her farm, after drawing it himself and fixing the latch on her gate.  
She thanked him in spanish, tears in her eyes.  
He answered in kind and left.

 

He sits at his campfire, sings a song to himself and his horse.  
Somewhere a coyote howls along.  
He’s all alone with the stars and the sand.  
He misses nothing.

 

They want to hang him. The rope ready on the gallows and the priest talking to him.  
He doesn’t listen.  
He’s gone to church as a boy and that was that.  
He is no longer a boy.  
Still he feels bad for leaving the priest. There is a chance he won’t bleed out, but it’s slim.  
As slim as the blade that did it.  
He picks the lock, takes his belt and hat and steals a horse.  
Young and fresh and wild it bucks under him.

They get along nicely.

 

At night he dreams of water and flutes and a filled belly. A home.  
He wakes thirsty and tired.  
Rides through the next night and drinks his wits off in the next saloon.  
Almost loses a firefight and scrapes by afterwards.

Depends on the kindness of a wagon train and gets them safely to their destination.  
A couple names their son after him and he laughs.  
If only they knew what they condemned their child to.  
The Gunslinger still thanks them, takes the bundle they pack him and rides away.  
Never looking back.

 

He gets to the coast eventually and takes a swim in the ocean.  
Turns back to the inland afterwards and sleeps under open skies for a year.

 

Six bullets, six dead men.  
They call him Deadeye now. The Devil’s Right Hand. The Gunslinger. As if he were the only one.

When someone asks his name he says:

"McCree. Jesse McCree, pleasure", and shakes their hand.  
His momma raised him right, after all.


End file.
